🎚️ Mixer, Channel Strips & MIDI Routing

The Mixer in Omni DAW is the heart of audio signal summing and balance control in your project. It offers precise adjustment of volume, stereo panning, FX bus sends, and advanced options for routing MIDI notes to external hardware synthesizers.

1. Channel Strip

Each track in the mixer has its own vertical channel strip equipped with the following controls:

• Volume Fader: Adjusts the signal level from -48 dB to +6 dB.
• Peak Meter: A stereo peak+RMS meter with a peak-hold line; upon clipping (above 0 dB), the bar color changes to red. The peak marks stay up for a moment, and the lamps above the bars latch on a clip until you click the meter.
• Pan: A knob for balancing the signal between the left and right channels, featuring an Equal-Power Panning algorithm (prevents perceived volume changes when panning).
• Trim (Level Tuning): An additional input sensitivity knob (0.0–2.0, meaning -∞ to +6 dB) operating pre-fader — useful for gain staging.
• Mute (M): Mutes the track.
• Solo (S): Mutes all tracks except the selected one.
• Record Arm (Red Button): Arms the track to record the incoming signal.

In the Session view the bottom block of a track column has a fixed size and three pages picked with the keys above it: VOL (meter, fader, PAN and TRIM knobs, LUFS loudness), FX (the insert chain, with the effect count on its key) and SND (send knobs; shown while a return bus exists, its LED lights while anything is sent). Each track keeps its own page; a double-click on a page key, or the VOL / FX / SENDS keys in the session bar, switch every track at once.

2. Sends and Returns (Send / Return Routing)

Omni DAW allows efficient workflow with return effects (Return Tracks / FX Busses), such as shared reverb or delay. The number of Return busses is dynamic — you can add as many as you need without a hard limit.

• Send Knobs: Each channel strip features send knobs, one for each existing Return bus. Turning the knob sends a portion of the track's signal to the corresponding effect track.
• Pre / Post Fader Mode: A pre/post toggle for each send is available in the expanded Master Console.
  • Post-Fader (Default): The send level changes proportionally to the movement of the track's main volume fader.
  • Pre-Fader: The signal is sent to the effect before the volume fader, allowing you to mute the main track while leaving the trailing reverb audible.

3. Master Bus

The Master bus is located on the right side of the mixer and serves as the final summing point for all tracks in the project:

• Master Fader: The main output fader for the project (silence to +6 dB, double-click restores the default level). The MASTER control in the transport bar, the fader in the Master panel and the fader in the console all set this one level, and it is saved with the project.
• Balance: Left/right balance of the Master bus (double-click to centre), saved with the project.
• Meter bridge: Stereo LED meters with peak hold and clip lamps. The readout shows the fader level, the held sample peak (PK), true peak (TP) and momentary / short-term / integrated loudness (EBU R128). Click the meter or the readout to clear the clip lamps and held peaks.
• Master Console (CONSOLE button under the Master panel): full-width mixing and mastering view. The top bridge shows M / S / I loudness, loudness range, true peak L / R, headroom to the target ceiling, phase correlation and the clip lamps; RESET restarts the loudness measurement. The meter Scale (Peak / K-12 / K-14 / K-20) is the same setting as in the transport bar. Below: spectrum (with a frequency / level readout under the pointer), loudness timeline, goniometer and oscilloscope; every channel strip with meters, faders, sends, pan, trim and inserts; and the Monitor (listen modes, dim, mute, polarity), Loudness Target, Reference (A/B or blind X/Y against a reference track, with a live loudness match) and Export cards. The A / B keys above the master strip switch between two versions of the master chain, plugins included.
• Master FX Chain: A dedicated slot for insert mastering effects, such as a parametric equalizer, master bus compressor, and a brickwall limiter to prevent digital clipping.
• TPDF Dither: Built-in TPDF dithering mechanism for 24-bit and 16-bit outputs, ensuring clean, quantization-noise-free track exports.

4. Hardware MIDI Output Routing

Omni DAW not only controls internal synthesizers but can also act as the brain of a hardware studio:

• Per-Track MIDI Routing: In the MIDI track header, you can select the physical MIDI output port of your interface (e.g., USB MIDI Out).
• Panic Button (All-Notes-Off): In case playback is stopped or looped, the engine automatically sends an All-Notes-Off signal to physical ports, preventing "hanging" or stuck notes on external hardware synthesizers.

5. Track Groups

A group track gathers tracks under one fader: their audio is summed into the group's bus, where its insert effects, volume, pan and sends work on the whole mix of them (drums, vocals, a synth stack) before it goes on to the Master.

• Group (Ctrl + G, or Group Tracks in a track's right-click or ⚙ menu): puts the selected tracks into a new group track placed where the first of them was. Select several tracks first: Shift-click a header or column for a range, Ctrl-click to add or remove one. Tracks selected from different places are gathered under the new group in their order.
• Naming: a new group is named after what goes into it: drum parts (Kick, Snare, Hat…) make "Drums", vocals "Vocals", and likewise Bass, Guitars, Keys, Synths, Strings, Brass and FX; tracks whose names begin with the same words take those words ("Verse Kick", "Verse Bass" → "Verse"); anything else is "Group". Names never repeat ("Drums 2"). Right after Ctrl + G the name is open for typing with the suggestion selected: type a new one, or press Enter or Esc to keep it.
• Renaming tracks, groups and scenes: Ctrl + R renames the selected track, or the scene under the pointer in the Session view. The name turns into a text field in place: Enter or a click elsewhere keeps the new name, Esc keeps the old one. Also: double-click a name in the Arrangement headers, on a group's column in the Session view or on a strip in the Master Console, or choose Rename in the right-click or ⚙ menu (a scene's right-click menu too). An empty scene name goes back to "Scene N". Every rename is a single undo step.
• Nesting: groups can hold groups, up to 8 levels deep. Group a group together with other tracks, or group tracks inside a group, the same way.
• Ungroup (Ctrl + Shift + G): dissolves the selected group; its tracks stay where they are and go one level up.
• Fold: the caret on a group's header (Arrangement) or the key at the right of its column header (Session) hides or shows its tracks; Alt-click folds every group inside it too. A folded group still shows its tracks' clips: the group's lane in the Arrangement draws one thin strip per track inside, in that track's colour.
• Moving tracks in and out: drag track headers in the Arrangement. The drop line shows where they land and how far it is indented shows the level: move the pointer right to go into the group above, to the left edge of the headers to take the tracks out of it. A tag names the group they join. A dragged group always moves with all its tracks. The right-click menu also has Move to Group, Move Out of the current group and Move Up / Down (the first or last track of a group steps out of it).
• Output routing: choosing a group as a track's Audio Output (⚙ → Routing) moves the track into that group; choosing Master takes it out to the top level.
• Mute and Solo: muting a group silences everything in it; soloing a group solos everything in it. Soloing a track inside a group keeps the groups above it open, so it is heard through them.
• Session view: a group's clip slots launch that row on every track inside it (a scene for the group alone) and its Stop key stops them. Each slot shows a stripe per track that has a clip in that row, lit while it plays. A coloured cap over the column tops brackets the group and its tracks, one cap per nesting level.
• Deleting a group deletes the tracks inside it too; one Undo brings everything back. Group, ungroup and every move are single undo steps.

Bus groups and VCA groups

A group is one of two kinds, chosen when you make it and switchable later (Convert to VCA / Convert to Bus Group in the group's right-click or ⚙ menu, one undo step):

• Bus group (Ctrl + G): the tracks' audio is summed into the group, through its insert effects, fader, pan and sends, then on to the Master. Use it to process a part as a whole (a compressor on the drums, a reverb send for the whole choir).
• VCA group (Ctrl + Alt + G, or Group … as VCA): the tracks are only gathered under it. Their audio keeps going where it went (the Master, or the bus group holding the VCA), with their own effects and sends. The VCA's fader is a remote control for theirs: moving it moves the level of every track inside by the same number of dB, so their balance never changes, down to silence and back.

The difference shows with sends. Say a vocal in the group sends to a shared reverb on a Return. Turning down a bus group lowers the summed dry vocal only: the vocal's own send still feeds the reverb at full strength, so the voice gets quieter while its reverb stays loud. Turning down a VCA lowers the vocal's fader itself, so its post-fader send to the reverb drops with it and the dry/wet balance stays as you mixed it. (Pre-fader sends, set up to stay independent of the fader, stay independent of the VCA too.)

How a VCA shows and behaves:

• Its glyph and badge are teal ("VCA · 4 TRACKS" on its Arrangement header, "VCA" over its Session column, whose bottom block holds only its fader). It has no inserts or sends, because no audio passes through it. Its meter shows the loudest of the tracks it rides, as heard (after their faders and the VCA), the way a console's VCA meter does.
• The faders of the tracks inside keep their own positions; a teal ghost cap shows where each one is heard (its own fader × the VCA), linked to the real cap by a thin line. Hovering a fader reads both values. Moving the VCA moves all the ghosts together.
• Volume automation drawn on the VCA rides every track inside it, the same way a track's own volume automation rides that track.
• Mute and Solo on a VCA mute or solo every track inside it.
• VCAs can sit inside bus groups and the other way round. A VCA scales the tracks under it up to the first bus group; a VCA holding a bus group rides that bus's fader, not the tracks inside it. VCAs inside VCAs multiply.
• Ungroup a VCA and its level is folded into the faders it rode, so the mix sounds the same (up to the faders' +6 dB top).
• A VCA is not an output: the Audio Output list (⚙ → Routing) shows the Master and bus groups only, and names where a track inside a VCA really goes.

A group track records nothing and holds no clips or instrument of its own, so it has no Record Arm or source key, and Freeze, Duplicate and instrument loading are not offered for it.